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This use of pahos is of ancient origin in Tusayan, as shown by the excavations at Sikyatki, where they were found in mortuary bowls or vases deposited by the relatives or surviving members of the sacerdotal societies to which the deceased had belonged.
The only fragment of pottery from Awatobi or Sikyatki with designs which could be identified with any modern picture of a katcina was found, as might be expected, in the former ruin. This small fragment is instructive, in that it indicates the existence of the katcina cult in Tusayan before 1700; but the rarity of the figures of these supernatural beings is very suggestive.
There was apparently a more or less intimate connection between the inhabitants of old Sikyatki and those of Awatobi, but whether or not it indicates that the latter was founded by the refugees from the former I have not been able definitely to make out.
When the Sikyatki potters decorated their ware the ornamentation of pottery had reached a high development, and figures both simple and complicated were used contemporaneously.
The three pueblos of Sikyatki, Awatobi, and Walpi, when properly studied, will show the condition of pueblo culture in three centuries in Sikyatki, pure, unmodified pueblo culture; in Awatobi, pueblo life as slightly modified by the Spaniards, and in Walpi, those changes resulting from the advent of Americans superadded.
Many of the rooms communicated by means of passageways with adjacent chambers, some of them being provided with niches and shelves. The average height of the standing walls revealed by excavation, as indicated by the distance of the floor below the surface of the soil, was about 5 feet. A description of each, it is hoped, will give an idea of a typical room of Sikyatki.
This vase may well be considered the most elaborately decorated in the whole collection from Sikyatki. There are several figures of butterflies, like those shown in plate CXXXI, a, in which the modifications of wings and body have proceeded still further, and the only features which refer them to insects are the jointed antennæ.
It may be mentioned, however, that the Horn people are reputed to have been early arrivals in Tusayan, and it is not improbable that representatives of the Horn clans lived in Sikyatki previous to its overthrow. Two faintly drawn animals, evidently intended for quadrupeds, appear on the interior of the food bowl shown in plate CXXX, b.
The typical Tusayan form of architecture is the pyramidal, especially in the most ancient pueblos. The ground plan of Sikyatki is of a type more common in the eastern pueblo region and in those towns of Tusayan which were built by emigrants from the Rio Grande region. Sikyatki and some of the villages overlooking Antelope valley are of this type.
The symbols, as well as the pottery itself, can not be distinguished from those of Sikyatki. Fragments of glazed ware are not unknown at Awatobi, but so far as recorded, entire specimens have never been obtained from the latter ruin.
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